


The Wrong Color

by Schnubbel166



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Loss, Sad, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 04:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18958021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schnubbel166/pseuds/Schnubbel166
Summary: A dress, never worn.





	The Wrong Color

**Author's Note:**

> Hello :)  
> This short story started out as a project for school originally with the prompt "Wedding dress on sale, Never worn".  
> I really really hope you'll like it. And don't hesitate to leave feedback :)

The thing about a wedding dress, isn’t the dress itself. It’s the way you feel when the fabric first touches your skin. Holds you in a dream-like embrace and makes you a princess, right out of a fairy tale. Exhilarating.

You keep it locked up in a wrapping, at the back of your wardrobe and wait longingly for the day, that special day, you get to wear it. Although, you only wear it once for real and it’s still months until it is time, you couldn’t care less. Your special someone is kept far away from it, because even though you don’t believe in old tales and urban legends, you don’t want to risk bad luck.

_I_ had all that. My dress is that of a princess. Beautiful and heavy, cream-colored fabric. Pearls and silk, fine embroidery on the neckline and around the sleeves. It had been on sale for days and I kept walking by it because, you can’t buy your wedding dress a half year before the ceremony, right? A dream come-true in a shop smelling like cinnamon and dust.

Now, it hangs in the outside of my wardrobe. 

Never worn.

I have been foolish, I realize, knees drawn up to my chest, arms wrapped around them. Foolish, naïve and utterly, utterly childish.

The room feels cold. My fingers are freezing, and the insides of my eyelids feel like sandpaper. Scratchy dry. My eyes sting, but there are no tears left to shed. Tears of a moth worth are long lost, used up in the course of two days and nights. No real sleep.

There’s a knock on the door. Three steady raps, signs of old habit. A nagging voice at the back of the head. Must be done. Important. “Come in,” I call out softly.

The door opens and he walks in, supported by his cane. Limping. His facial expression is just as tired as mine. Deep dark circles underneath his eyes. No sleep. Insomnia. He is wearing his uniform, back straightened, even with the cane. A short look at the dress, a short silent moment.

With a quiet ‘click’, the door closes behind him, and he crosses the room to sit on the edge of the bed behind me. Muffled thudding of his steps. We keep quiet. A heavy blanket on our lungs, the quiet. There’s a hand on my shoulder, as calloused and big as ‘his’, less slim and filigree though. Hands made for art, not fight.

“I’m thinking of selling it,” I say. What use is there for a wedding dress, when there is no bride to wear it? No wedding, for a bride to wear it.

He makes a small ‘hmph’ sound. Disapproval. But we both know I can’t keep it. It’s beauty pains me, the memories bound to it, reminders of ‘him’, pain me.

“I can store it in for you,” he says, his voice not much more than a whisper. I’m biting my lip and look at the clean, white fabric. “That is very kind of you,” I say and look at him for the first time since he entered the room. Really look at him.

If I had to guess his emotions, I would say that he is as worn out as I am. Only a broken shell, left behind in the cold. I remember his smiles, from before the war and his careless, inappropriate jokes. Our youth wasted away in the last few years.

Buried underneath adulthood and dust, rubble and chaos.

He looks at the dress again and nods. “Very well,” he mumbles as he stands up from the bed and stretches his limps, “you should change. I will be waiting for you at the foot of the staircase.” I nod and he leaves without another word.

 

Around me, it’s cold. People, friends and relatives, look at me worriedly. It is quiet, only the sound of rustling clothes disturbs the silence and soft sniffling noises.

My hand is on his offered arm. He supports me as I walk down the aisle.

Not for the right reason.

I stop to look at ‘him’. One last time. It feels wrong.

My throat tightens and a tear falls down onto my black gloves.

Tears. Not out of joy. It isn’t right.

As I look up, I see my reflection in the window of the church. See the dress I am wearing. Black.

The wrong dress. The wrong color.

 

Only a few weeks pass and I am left with the reminders of ‘his’ fall. A letter arrives, telling me about his fall. No praise, just the plain truth. No money, we weren’t married yet. I don’t want it anyways. I inherit though. ‘He’ leaves me a farmhouse in the country. Another letter. Reassurance. I am supposed to keep strong; ‘he’ believes in me.

When the man with the dark-gray suit and serious expression stops reading, I am left astounded.

In the evening, I tell him about the farmhouse. His expression is pained. “As long as I live, you won’t have to worry about income.” He promises. Not even considering the possibility of selling the farm. Out of deep sorrow, a friendship blossomed.

A few days later, he proposes and since I know his motivation, I accept.

And I think about my unworn dress.

 

The wedding is plain and simple. His nervous twitching at the end of the aisle makes me smile a little. A first in months.

My feet feel as heavy as lead as I get closer to him with every step. I want to run, because _this_ , marrying my best friend, ‘his’ best friend and comrade, was never my plan.

I appreciate his gesture and selflessness for my benefits.

When I look behind him, the windows reflect my image and my heart stings and feels like it is tearing apart.

The dress is white this time, just like my gloves and headpiece.

But it is the wrong dress.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <3


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